Category Archives: Opinion

DSM-5 or: “Progress” in psychiatry

DSM-5 is the acronym of the 2013 update to the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) classification and diagnostic tool. The full title is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.

In the United States the DSM serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnosis. Treatment recommendations, as well as payment by health care providers, are often determined by DSM classifications, so the appearance of a new version has significant practical importance. DSM-5 is also an important reference tool in many other countries.

I am neither an expert in this discipline, nor did I – fortunately – have a history as a patient in that field. But I find some of the content of DSM-5 deeply disturbing.

Grief is according to my understanding a normal reaction to the loss of a close person. And it is difficult to imagine that there is someone out there who thinks that grief is something pathological. It is very individual how and how long we grieve. But DSM-5 says: if you lost your partner, child, parent, or another person close to you and you mourn for longer than two weeks(!), you are suffering from a pathological disorder that requires treatment.

DSM-4, the predecessor of DSM-5 admitted in 2000 still a two months’ mourning period after the loss of a close person as “normal”, DSM-3 in 1980 even a one year mourning period as “normal”.

And let me guess – DSM-6 will probably consider a mourning period longer than two days as a pathological disorder. I suppose that is called “progress”. (It is indeed – but only for the balance sheets of the pharmaceutical industry.)

I hope I will never fall in the hands of a psychiatrist who is working on the basis of DSM-5.

“Progress celebrates victories over nature. Progress makes purses of human skin….Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.” (Karl Kraus)

 

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“For good mood”

Most of you know what a fortune cookie is – a cookie with a fortune inside, i.e. a message that predicts a hopefully bright future or at least a positive aspect of the future. “You will make a new friend”, “A surprising journey is waiting for you”, “A lottery win”. or “You will meet the love of your life”, or a similarly harmless message, not to be taken seriously.

As far as I know, this trend comes originally from China and has spread all over the world now. As it happens with such trends, some changes and adaptations have occurred in some parts of the world.

One of these changes is that the fortune can be also a quote by a famous person, an aphorism – preferably funny or philosophical, something that makes you think or smile. Something that enhances your good mood.

The other change that can be observed in many places is that the fortune comes without the cookie. You order a coffee, and it comes with a rolled fortune message.

As a curious person, I usually unfold these fortune messages. Not because I believe in the truth of these fortunes, but because they can tell you sometimes something about the mentality or the culture of the place.

During my last visit in Sofia, I had a coffee with a friend. And – it came with a fortune message:

 

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The text reads as follows:

“The bigger the lie, the easier it will be believed.” (Adolf Hitler)

Yes, this is not a joke! Where usually quotes by famous philosophers, spiritual persons, scientists are printed, you have to read the quote of one of the biggest mass murderers in history.

And as if this was not already enough, the fortune message says (below the logo of the company “Happy”, the biggest chain of fast food restaurants in Bulgaria):

“For good mood”

No, “Happy”, I was not at all in a good mood.

Are you just plain stupid, incredibly insensitive, or do you really want to bring your customers “in a good mood” by offering them fortune messages from a mass murderer? Or do you possibly think that this form of marketing is even clever?

In the last case, I bet that your next fortune messages will be like this:

“A man, a problem – no man, no problem.” (Josef Stalin)

“Everything I did, I did for my country.” (Pol Pot)

“You cannot run faster than a bullet.” (Idi Amin)

“Happy” – the inventor of “Genocide marketing”. Shame on you!

 

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The Translation Dilemma

The Frankfurt Book Fair that closed just a few days ago, is the world’s biggest book fair. When I was living in Frankfurt, I used to visit this event every year – and each year I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the fair and by the presence of publishers, authors and other less visible participants from the book industry.

One of the features of the book fair in Frankfurt I like most is that (almost) every year, a country or a linguistic region is the Guest of Honor of the event and has the opportunity to present itself in a thematic pavilion. This year, the thematic pavilion presented Finland – and not only the literature – which is beside Finnish also written in Swedish or Sami language – but the culture in general. (Next year the Guest of Honor will be Indonesia.)

Now what I find interesting is that for a week almost all – so it seems to me – important writers and intellectuals of the guest country are in this medium-sized German city, and this comes with a visibility in public that is quite remarkable. Not only that you have plenty of readings and discussions with writers (and not only from the guest country), but also in TV, print and electronic media, the presence of writers and books is immense.

Knowing well that the thematic choice of the Book Fair is also a marketing instrument to focus the interest of the public on a region that is usually not so much present in the mind of the ordinary reader, the publishing houses include in their programmes also a considerable number of translations from the respective guest of the year.

As a result of these combined efforts (of which of course the translators are a crucial part), I counted 130 new translations and editions of belletristic texts (fiction) from Finnish to German in 2013/2014. Of these, about 70% are books that have never been translated before. Additionally about 60 belletristic books from Finnish authors that write in Swedish or Sami language have been translated into German in the same period.

Just for the record: according to the Three Percent database of the University of Rochester that lists all translations from foreign languages that are available via publishers in the US, in the same period only one (1) fiction book was translated from Finnish to English!

Poor readers in the US (and in the other anglophone countries the situation is almost the same) – when you don’t read Finnish (or Swedish or German), your chances to ever have an opportunity to read a contemporary Finnish novel, story book or poetry collection are almost zero. And the same goes for many many other books even from “major” languages. (I don’t want to insinuate in any way that “small” languages, i.e. languages with a comparatively small number of native speakers produce “small”, i.e. unimportant literature – the contrary is true! I am just referring here to the negligence even of languages with more than 50 or 100 million native speakers)

Maybe Warren Buffett, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg could sponsor a major translation programme to make all important works of literature available to English-speaking readers? Just asking…

Blogging really opened my eyes about the fact how very important translations of literary texts are. When they are – for whatever reason – not available, many readers are cut off from the chance to really understand what’s going on in the world and how other cultures really are.

The result of this possibly distorted world view is becoming a serious problem – even geo-politically. I am convinced that a lot of the misconceptions and blunders of policy makers are the result of a lack of knowledge – which frequently is the result of a lack of translated information and literary texts.

If this blog and those of many similarly devoted bloggers makes a few people sensitive for this question or in one case or the other finds an important translated book a few new readers – or even a publisher! -, then it has achieved already quite a lot.

By the way, have you read any Finnish fiction? I will for sure later review one or the other book here as well, but I am curious to hear from my readers what they can possibly recommend.

 © Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

A pseudo “service”

Are customer reviews on amazon.com a real service and useful for readers? 

The answer is: no. Customer reviews on that website are clearly a pseudo “service”. 

A very few of them are interesting. But I usually do not know who is writing them. In some cases it is an author who writes under certain aliases reviews about his own – usually mediocre – book, while writing very unfavorable reviews on the books of competitors (Orlando Figes is not the only case). In other cases it is someone who is paid to write these reviews in the interest of the author or publisher. And even a very high number of favorable reviews don’t say anything about the quality of the book – unless you think “a million flies cannot be wrong”… 

Nevertheless, some of the amazon.com customer reviews make for hilarious reading. Some examples: 

“The most boring read ever! The main character spends all his time doing nothing — and, worse, makes us all listen to his tedious CONTEMPLATIONS on how he does nothing. Much too slow; there should be more action here. Moreover, the author reverts time and time again to tired cliches — e.g., “outrageous fortune,” “murder most foul,” “primrose path,” “the time is out of joint,” “more honored in the breach than the observance.” The list could go on and on: we’ve heard them millions of times before, and we hear them every day. Finally, the story is too grim and sad. Why do so many people have to die? Why can’t the main character just realize that it’s better to forgive and forget than to take revenge and CONSTANTLY PONTIFICATE about EVERYTHING. Stay away from this book. There are lots of better and more entertaining books to buy.” (A. Person, Cambridge, MA – on Hamlet) 

Ok, if you need more action, I recommend Counterstrike…no contemplation required. 

“I don’t see anything philosophical, moral or intelligent about this book. It’s a boring, nonsensical story that has no point and on top of that is an excellent example of extreme ennui. If anyone other than the intellectual, snob critics’ pet “Kafka” had written it it would have been flushed down the toilet where it deserves to be.” (Euterpe – on The Metamorphosis) 

If I had the choice to either flush this review or The Metamorphosis down the toilet, it is an easy guess which one would I choose. 

“Paulo Coelho in my opinion is the best writer I have read in my life. He astonishes me with his natural talent and his insight.” (NN jr. – on The Zahir) 

I feel sorry for each person that thinks that this insufferable windbag P.C. is a writer at all. “The best writer I have read in my life” – Mr. NN jr. has either a wicked sense of irony, or he is a serious contender for the award for the dumbest sentence in a book review ever. 

“Not a great novel by ANY means. VEEEEERY SLOOOOOOW, INCREDIBLY BORING and NEVER really gets going at all (I bet most people will fall asleep after the first chapter or two). Defies logic how this novel gets so highly rated by ANYONE. Quite a bizarre/weird writing style and I really struggled with this one. Don’t waste your time reading this garbage.” (graygray – on Crime and Punishment) 

Defies logic how this masterpiece can be rated by anyone as “incredibly boring”. 

“This book is absolutely BORING!! I can’t believe almost everyone (or is it just everyone?) rated this book as 5 full stars! First, I don’t get it, second, Werther is somewhat pahychotic (Sic!), and third, this book has no plot. Therfore (Sic!), no climax, which is the most important part of a book.” (A Customer – on The Sorrows of Young Werther) 

Ah yes, Goethe, the old bugger. He hadn’t got a clue how to write. No plot, no climax – and I bet also his orthography was not on par with yours… 

These reviews made me think of two sentences of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: 

„Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das allemal im Buch?“ (When a book and a head are colliding and it sounds hollow, is it always in the book?) 

„Ein Buch ist ein Spiegel: wenn ein Affe hineinsieht, so kann kein Apostel heraus gucken.“ (A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out) 

So, better you read some good book blogs or other print or electronic media with a more serious approach to reviewing instead of amazon.com’s customer reviews – and better buy your books at your local bookstore. (And if you buy online, there are many good alternatives to Mr. Bezos’ figment of monopoly capitalism.)

 

The Lichtenberg quotes are from his Waste Books (NYRB Classics, transl. R.J. Hollingdale).

Waste Books

 

The quotes from customer reviews are from the Amazon.com website.

 

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


Is Javier Marias a Snob?

Javier Marias, the eminent Spanish novelist, has recently published a text “Seven Reasons Not to Write Novels and Only One Reason to Write Them” in the Threepenny Review (and reprinted by the Independent). You can read Marias’ text here:

http://threepennyreview.com/samples/marias_su14.html or here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/javier-marias-there-are-seven-reasons-not-to-write-novels-and-one-to-write-them-9610725.html

I was dumbfounded by this article and like to comment on it.

First, it is very superficial to give the impression that the reasons not to write and publish novels outweigh the reasons to write and publish them by 7:1 – this is not a football match Germany-Brazil, Mr. Marias, but a question that is decided on an individual basis by each (potential) novelist and by each reader of novels based on qualitative and not on quantitative criteria. I suppose that any “real” novelist (you use the term without defining it) doesn’t make a list first with reasons “Why I shouldn’t write this novel” and another one with reasons “Why I should write this novel”. This is not how the mind of a genuine storyteller works – and I am sure you know that.

You claim, Mr. Marias, that there are already too many novels and too many people that write them – too many according to what criteria? If it is the quality of the books and novels we read – and I see no reason why we should waste our time to read badly written, boring or uninspiring novels – then there can be never enough novels and enough novelists that write them. And no, Mr. Marias, the existing novels are not “demanding to be eternally read” (at least they never raised their voice with such a demand when I am standing in front of my book shelves). Many of the novels that were published up to now will fall into oblivion in the future because the readers will decide not to read them anymore and maybe because they will prefer to read some of the novels that will be published in the future and which they will consider as more interesting, entertaining, relevant to them.

And, Mr. Marias, with all due respect, but why are you such a snob? Because novel writing doesn’t require (in theory) a higher education or special training, you seriously assume that any potential novelists will not write or publish a novel? Because it is, as you say (and I strongly disagree), an activity that “lacks merit and mystery” and because (potentially) everyone could do it, any novelist will in all seriousness decide not to write his novel? I rarely came across a more snobbish and conceited statement by an intelligent person and writer I otherwise admire for his published novels.

My strong guess, Mr. Marias, is that neither Goethe, nor Flaubert, nor Tolstoy, nor Kafka wrote or published novels in order to become rich – and that is true for probably 99.99% of all novelists. (The bunch of Dan Brown, Paulo Coelho, and the like I consider as hacks, not as serious writers)

The same goes for your argument that a novel is not a guarantee of fame. Maybe I am naïve here, but isn’t the main driving force for all storytellers and writers the wish to tell and share a story that is meaningful to them, in the hope it might be entertaining and even captivating to others as well? An author that starts his writing process with the thought of possible immortality is in my opinion a case for a therapy. So why exactly do you picture your colleagues as being driven by the strong wish to make busloads of money and to become immortal and world famous?

And no, Mr. Marias, also your sixth reason not to write a novel is ridiculously wrong. Writing novels (or any other kind of prose) indeed flatters the ego – maybe in another way as you seem to imagine, but it does. To be able to tell a story that is gripping readers or listeners can be an extremely rewarding activity, as you should know better than me.

And, Mr. Marias, please stop whining about the “abnormal life” of writers and the “great sufferings” they have to experience. They are not suffering more than any human being, and not all of them are alcoholics either.

But when you are trying to tell us, Mr. Marias, that only brilliant people like yourself should publish novels in the future, I will gladly forgive you. For I will trade with the greatest pleasure one hundred shallow articles like this one of yours for one page of your next novel. 

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The most disgusting photo of the week

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Ultra-nationalist businessman Nemanja Kusturica (formerly known as filmmaker Emir K.) kissing the statue of a killer who triggered WWI with millions of victims.

Well, since Slobodan Milošević‘s xxx is not available any longer, this is at least consequent.

What a miserable creature…

 

photo source:    http://www.balkaneu.com/kusturica-reveals-monument-gavrilo-princip/

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

From the Dictionary of Inhumanity

It’s so disgusting.

A “friend” (now not any longer) sent me a link to a blog he likes. The first sentences of this blog are: “Because the parasite cannot help. The parasite can only harm.”

“The parasite” is not a vermin but people, human beings…from a specific ethnic group (doesn’t matter which one) – sounds exactly like the Nazi propaganda movie “Jud Suess”. First you declare that a certain race is vermin, and then…we know what followed.

In the 21st century.

In a country in Europe that prides itself for its “famous tolerance and hospitality”.

From a “friend”.

From a person who is otherwise an educated and decent person.

And his racism is so widespread among the vast majority of his fellow countrymen.

Revolting, disgusting, sad.

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.